


Both

by chainofclovers



Category: Supergirl (TV 2015)
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-21
Updated: 2016-10-21
Packaged: 2018-08-23 16:44:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,767
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8334907
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chainofclovers/pseuds/chainofclovers
Summary: They go to the ocean to feel small.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Eek. Hello there. I've mostly written over in the Devil Wears Prada fandom, but so many of my fave writers from there are totally Supergirl-obsessed and writing great things here, and I've ended up falling into it a little bit too. I mean, isn't it all just getting coffee for a hot person? 
> 
> This story is set in a sort of no-particular-time prior to the start of the second season, and I had lots of fun writing it. I've never written in a superhero universe before, and I had fun trying (and often failing) to make my writing into big colorful swaths. I'm intimidated by the largeness of these worlds, and the technological detail of these worlds, but I hope you enjoy.

They go to the ocean to feel small. 

“It’s more powerful than either of us,” Cat says, her precise voice muffled by the grey chop of the waves. She stands with Kara at the edge of the water, gold leather sandals dangling from her fingers, trousers rolled up to mid-calf. And although Kara could swim against a rip current for miles, could torpedo her body out of the deepest depths and fly above the surf, they both know Cat is right. They take comfort in it, in the certainty of that thankfully untested defeat. Next to the ocean, the power of a single creature—human, alien, animal—is nothing but hubris. 

The sun won’t rise for a while: the sky is just starting to glow, and they have a couple hours until the day really begins. Since becoming Supergirl and spending a lot of time outside in the middle of the night, Kara’s gotten acquainted with every phase of the sky, the light that makes three a.m. different from four a.m. different from five a.m. It was pitch black when she flew Cat here, to this isolated beach north of National City, but she trained her eyes on every streetlamp and flickering factory and guiding light along the way, using her super senses when she couldn’t get by otherwise. They’ve only been here a few minutes, but it’s already easier to see. 

Kara wants to put her arm around Cat’s shoulders, wants words to say. But here in the half-dark, although her hair is down and her cape flaps in the wind, she feels less like Supergirl than she’d like, and the liminality is dangerous. Cat wants to be here with Supergirl, _is_ here with Supergirl, and Kara cannot afford to forget it. 

Cat owns a house on one of the beaches south of the city—Kara supposes Supergirl wouldn’t know that—but they’ve never been there together in any iteration of who “they” are. Cat and Supergirl always head north instead, to an anonymous patch of public beach so utterly abandoned in the off-season that you’d hardly know there was a touristy little town nestled just past the intracoastal. “This is my favorite spot for incognito thinking,” Cat said on their first visit, breathless after the descent. She didn’t speak again until she’d caught her breath; Cat almost never did anything she didn’t want to do, and she always took her time. “I’ve been coming here since I was no one in particular.” That first time, she’d been afraid to fly with Supergirl on an extended ride, in a non-emergency situation with no distractions from the heights. She gave herself away with hyperventilation and sweaty palms clutched tight to the super suit. She’s used to it now. When they fly, Cat carries her things in an old backpack of Carter’s that she keeps in the office so her arms are free to squeeze Kara’s torso in a death grip. She closes her eyes even though she’s sure the stars are lovely: closes her eyes and pretends she’s lying in bed _pretending_ to fly. 

They don’t come here often; they’ve been here together only a few times before, when conditions have lined up. Correct conditions: a hard night for Supergirl. A “chance” meeting in the middle of said hard night. An early morning with no obligations for either of them but to show up at work eventually. Carter is at sleepaway science camp this week, spending a school vacation holed up in a dorm at National City U with dozens of sci-fi/superhero/chemistry experiment-loving kids who’ll bring him out of his shell if anyone can, and both Cat and Kara seem aware of the rareness of this time, aware that something needs to happen while Carter is gone. 

The first time these conditions aligned, Kara was frantic with loss of life, sick with guilt over not being enough, and Cat’s imperious generosity— _I’ll share my ocean with you_ —was the only thing strong enough to cut through the pain and calm her down. 

Last night, Kara had taken a chance and flown past Cat’s office balcony around midnight, hoping for a moment’s breath after rending apart metal frames to rescue three people from a serious car accident. She got a little less than a moment, as it turned out—was called away by a crane malfunction at the port—but there’d been enough time to seek Cat out as she drank whiskey and scanned the skyline. “Don’t come back if you’re too tired,” Cat had said, no trace in her voice of the demands she used to hurl at “Kiera,” nor the expectations she has for Kara, no trace even of the hard, unrelenting curiosity with which she has often addressed Supergirl. “But if you’re up for it, I wouldn’t mind going to the beach in a few hours.” 

Kara worries about Cat. She doesn’t always go home. Sometimes dinner is whiskey, or a few martinis. But Cat loves herself. She is brilliant, she is resilient. She is right here—

—but then she shrugs her son’s backpack from her slight shoulders, turns away from the water and walks a few hundred feet up the beach. Kara watches Cat rummage for her beach blanket, an expansive, billowy thing made from parachute material. She watches Cat attempt to spread it out against the wind, knowing she should help. Finally she snaps out of it and lands at her side in a burst of speed. When they get control of the blanket, Cat sits down, leaning back on her elbows so she can recline. 

“How’s your hangover?” Kara asks, plopping down on the blanket. She sits as close to Cat as she thinks she can get away with.

“I suppose there’s no point in saying ‘I don’t have a hangover’?”

“Nah. Want to try to sleep for a while?”

In response, Cat lets her arms fall to her sides, stretches out on the blanket. “Stay with me if I fall asleep. Please.”

“Of course.”

Cat rolls close to Kara without reaching out, closes her eyes. Kara watches her, admonishes herself because she’s the same as she always was, the kid who never even auditioned for the starring role in musicals even though she loved to sing, only raised her hand in class if it seemed like the teacher had their eye on someone else even though she’d always done the reading. All the times Kara has felt physical pain are surreal memories now. She isn’t sure if she remembers pain correctly, having no real approximation for it so long as she has her powers. But this holding pattern with Cat—even if her nerve endings cannot technically suffer, she aches everywhere. There are pebbles of longing planted in her heart, her stomach, between her legs. 

Cat sleeps for what feels to Kara like a long time, wakes up by degrees as the sunlight intensifies. When she’s fully awake, fully there, she groans as she sits up. Kara wants to nudge her back down, hold her and pretend like she can kiss a headache away, so she scrambles to her feet. 

“I’ll get you coffee.” 

“Dressed as Supergirl?”

“I’ll fly home first and change clothes. Or maybe I’ll fly to the place around here, see if it’s open first. Either way, I’ll be back in...fifteen. Coffee on the beach! It’ll be nice!” 

Cat raises her eyebrows as Kara Danvers dressed as Supergirl rambles enthusiastically about something mundane. She doesn’t tell Supergirl her preferred coffee order, and Kara doesn’t ask her for it. 

It takes seventeen minutes to bring back coffee. Kara’s dressed as Supergirl again when she hands Cat, who looks like she hasn’t moved, her favorite Noonan’s blend—and a lemon scone, purchased on a whim of Supergirlish fancy. “I’ve never flown with coffee before,” she says, grimacing as she takes a sip of her own. “It’s ice cold. I must’ve flown too high up because I was alone.” When she flies with humans, she thinks about their temperature. 

Cat rolls her eyes and takes a sip anyway. She could say “thank you,” or she could snark at Supergirl, make a crack about how her new assistant makes that kind of mistake, but her former assistant Kara never would. Kara wonders what it will be, now that it’s solidly morning and there’s little left to do but return to their stupid games. Cat glances up at Kara, who’s standing in such a way that Cat is shielded from the sun. All expression fades from her shadow-crossed face.

“Be both with me,” Cat begs, a low and desperate sound. 

Kara feels a flood of … heat, she supposes, like getting in trouble, or like exhilaration. She kneels, her knees the only part of her on the blanket. “Okay,” she says, and bites back _I’ll try_ because there isn’t space for anything between the life this moment begins and everything that happened before. 

“Okay.” Cat’s voice is a bit brighter, deflecting. She takes a bite of scone.

“You got your meds with you?” Kara asks, unthinking rather than eager to prove an identity merge. Cat doesn’t have to take her daily dose of Lexapro with food, but she usually takes it and a multivitamin with breakfast because it’s easier to remember that way. She’s asked Cat this or a related question on countless mornings. 

“No, in the office. I’ll remember. Want some of this?”

Kara is terrified, so much so that she might never eat again. Which means she’d like about eight scones instead of a dozen. “Um. I’m all right, thanks.” 

Cat sets the scone down on a napkin, sinks the base of the coffee cup into a patch of sand, and removes her gauzy sweater. She wears a cream-colored camisole, a bra that’s nearly a color match. “I’m cold,” she says pointedly. 

They shift, then, to sit side by side and stare at the water, and when Kara is brave enough to wrap her arm around Cat’s shoulders, Cat embraces her torso like they’re flying. It’s not a dawning, because the sun has already dawned. It’s not a start. 

“We need to get to CatCo,” Cat says, though she doesn’t move, and adds: “Humans are hot and cold all the time. And we’re full of secret desires. Your double-life gets a costume, Kara, but—”

“—but I’m not special.” Kara smiles.

The noise Cat makes is dismissive. “Kiss me before we go back?” she asks lightly. The question is a thin layer of icing, perfect but about to crack. 

The kiss: strong and small as they are.


End file.
